Friday, May 24, 2013

I am in exam stress, but check out this article. Chemists have unravelled the internal structure of a protein linked to stuttering in 5% or so of the stuttering population.

This information is useful in understanding how the structure of this "abnormal" protein might cause neuro-anatomical difference in people's brains. But proteins complex 3D beasts that change their structure with temperature and pressure, so any clear cut statements might be difficult to reach unless in a few exceptions.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

To all scientists, check out Soo-Eun Chang's job opening for a postdoctoral position in neuroimaging of stuttering: see here. She is moving to the University of Michigan this summer to a position that was endowed for research in stuttering at a medical school, which is a very special opportunity!

Here is the job opening:

The University of Michigan Department Of Psychiatry is seeking candidates for a postdoctoral research fellow position in a brain imaging laboratory that studies the neural bases of stuttering and other related speech-language and developmental disorders.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

The ECSF consortium would like to announce that the registration for the 2013-2014 course cycle is open.

The ‘ECSF’ is a one-year program, providing both the knowledge and the clinical skills, to assist speech-language therapists in becoming European Fluency Specialists. The program is a well-designed combination of lectures, clinical practice and home assignments.

If you are already working as an SLT, this specialization course is compatible with your current workload. Lectures are provided during two intensive weeks, scheduled during the academic year. These modules are combined with follow up sessions in the home country of the participant. The local sessions take place outside the intensive weeks. Preparatory reading and home assignments form an integral part of the course. The specialized clinical training, under supervision of a fluency specialist, can begin after the first intensive week.

Friday, May 03, 2013

I know that I have not been following up on my video posts. My apologies. I have been and will be quite busy and need to rethink my video-blog strategy. ;-)

Today I want to talk about the Internet and how it has revolutionized our lives in several ways.

Email was just the gift from heaven for me, because I did not have to call people or go to them and explain in spoken words. I could just write an email, fine-tune the email, and send it off. I felt like a normal person not impeded by my stuttering. Of course, that led to all kind of other problems, because now all the bad things that happened to me in response to an email could not be blamed to stuttering! Including unsuccessful talking to girls!

Blogging was another gift, as I could reach the whole community and again was not limited by my speaking. Again. That led to all kinds of other problems, as I decided to say whatever I had on my mind. Maybe as a reaction to all the things that I had on my mind but could not say in all those years. The barrage of to-be-told ideas broke.

The Internet in general provided me with the perfect source of information on stuttering. I could email people, they could email me, I could read all kinds of scientific articles, I could get into other people's mind by reading their first-person experiences, and I could influence the thinking of many people. And it opened up a level playing field to challenge those in positions of power in academic research or therapy that thought they were the God.

Facebook was not really a gift for me. I already had email and blogging to express myself. In fact, Facebook is democratisation of the Internet taking one step too far. Nowadays, everyone can just post anything on stuttering. Millions of logical fallacies which drive me insane. Even more so, because they are inextricably entangled with many interesting and diverse experiences of people who stutter. As I always say, your experience of stuttering is your experience and true on its own, but your interpretation of your stuttering, i.e. its causes and its treatments, is mostly likely marred with fallacies. Any reasonable message is drowned in the vast amount of messages. It's a bit like at stuttering conferences...